Nisha Davdra Review and Hijabi friendly style ideas

I've loved Indian jewelry since forever. I love the elegance, and the timeless style. Most blingy statement necklaces you find at your local forever 21 and the like, are very similar to traditional style Indian Kundan Sets. I was very excited to get these pieces and happy that I can share them with all of you.

I've been a long time subscriber of Nisha Davdra aka hennafied (youtube). She has some awesome style videos, hair and make up tutorials. She recently started a jewelry line and I was happy to have some of her hand selected pieces become a part of my jewelry collection. I personally love Nisha's style and attention to detail, so I knew these pieces would be perfection. I just wrapped up a review for three pieces from her collection. You can watch my review here...



I'm a hijabi and wear my headscarf in public 100% of the time. I'd also like to be able to wear my beautiful new Indian jewelry too. There are many tutorials online on how to wear a damini aka maang tikka with hijab so I just followed those. You can also wear earrings if you show yours ears (I don't). I used the earring from the kundan set as a fancy dangly hijab pin (make sure the earring back is snug and not loose). The necklace can be work by pulling the knot on the dory all the way to the end, making the necklace as long as possible and then wearing it around your neck. The necklace can also be placed on the head and worn in a similar way that I'm wearing the damani.

I'm super impressed with the Nisha Davdra jewelry collection and look forward to owning more of her pieces. You can shop her website at www.nishadavdra.com, click here to watch and subscribe to her youtube channel.

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14,000 subscribers!!! Thank you

From the very bottom of my heart, many thanks are do to my subscribers. All of you mean so much to me. Every comment, view, and video rating makes its all worth it. I've been at it since 2008 and after a two year hiatus I'm glad to be back. 

As promised I'll have a giveaway in August to celebrate this milestone. Whoo hoo! I love all of you. 

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MDH Henna Powder Review

Very rarely do I go out and blind purchase henna powder off the shelf. I did such a thing the other day for a whopping $5.99. The box doesn't note a harvest or expiration date, so there isn't a clear indication as to when it was harvested.

Knowing the harvest date wasn't really that important, because upon opening the box I discovered two extra ingredients in the henna powder. MDH's secret ingredients include green dye and sand!!! They must know this is the secret to making a henna artist happy (sarcasm). 

The green dye is added to old henna to give it a fresh harvested look, but even freshly harvested and milled henna isn't that green. The sand is added in place of actual henna powder. It gives the henna powder more weight, making it appear as though you have 100 grams of henna when you actually only have 80 grams (the other 20 grams is just sand). 

The green dye doesn't really cause too many issues but the sand makes it near impossible to apply a decent design. So after discovering the two extra ingredients I didn't see the need to test the stain or mix the paste as I normally would. 

MDH gets a big fat F in my book. 

Watch my review of MDH on YouTube!

A Culture Junkies Paradise! World Beat Festival Salem OR

This past weekend was insane fun coupled with insane heat. June 29th I attended the 16th annual World Beat festival in Salem Oregon. 

(Me with Mariko of Takafuji Dance Company)

It was the first time I've attended this festival and I'm glad I did. I'm a bit of a culture junkie. I love to travel to, eat, listen, and look at the many cultures that make the world this cool place that it is. World Beat festival made all of that possible just 45 minutes away from home. 

          (Takafuji Dance Company)

             (Chinelos de Morelos)

  (Native American Pow Wow Dancers)

  (Native American Pow Wow Dancers)

      (Chosho Yabe Calligraphy)

   (Titlakawan Traditional Aztec Dance)

The music, dancing, and other performance art were my favorite parts of the festival. I wish the food selection was a little more diverse. There was your typical festival food, and a few ethnic options. Some countries/cultures were only represented by one food vendor if at all. 

(Elephant ears so bad but so gooooddd)

There were plenty of art vendors on hand. I counted three henna artists all bunched in the same area (not good). Over all I loved the festival and hope to see more food verity next year. I wonder how festival organizers might encourage that? There was constant entertainment in a beautiful outdoor setting. 

(More Takafuji Dance Company, my favorite performers)

     (Chosho Yabe Calligraphy)

  (Native America Pow Wow Dancers)

    (Awesome incredibly large tee pee)

I highly recommend this festival. Pictured are my favorite performances. There was a lot I didn't see or didn't take pictures of because I wanted to sit back and enjoy. Oregon is such a diverse state with so much to offer. See you next year World Beat!

Select images were provided by Mason-Cruise Gallery. All images copyright 2013 Mason-Cruise and Free Hand Mehndi. 

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OOTD Formal Hijabi Edition **Two post Tuesday**

Soooo, they're really trying to cram those weddings in before Ramadhan starts next month. Last minute wedding invitation means throwing something together quick. 

Kaftans/Caftans are really popular in hijabi formal fashion these days. My collection is slowly building because they're also kind of spendy {$100-$400 each} depending on fabric quality and embellishments. The cool thing is they're practically free size and maxi length, and so they're perfect for plus size and tall women. Kaftans are super feminine and flowey so they look great on just about anyone. 

Tonight's ensemble is a kaftan I purchased last year as a last minute Eid dress (I ended up wearing a black abaya instead). It's chiffon with heavy beadwork and covered in jewel tone prints. I can wear just about any color scarf with this dress, so I decided to go with a warm mandarin orange pashmina. 

For accessories I went with a silver/crystal statement ring, that also matched my sandals. Ring is from a local boutique, sandals are from Payless. Most of my formal or fancy shoes come from Payless, I just don't see the point in paying loads for formal shoes I'll only wear once or twice. 

My makeup was simple, I went heavy on the kohl liner and did a very neutral lip. 

Here's to wedding fun tonight! Lots of business cards on hand since I almost always end up meeting my next bridal henna client at a wedding. Hope you enjoyed my very first fashion post. 

Kaftan $125

Orange Pashmina $25

Ring $12

Shoes $19.99

Dramatic Arabic Eyes on Hooded Eyelids

Ok so I'm still very new to this style of make up but I have to say by far it is the easiest to learn for me, and it looks great on me. 

For years I've struggled with eye makeup not realizing that because I have hooded lids I had another set of rules to play by. Maybe not so much rules, but different techniques I must use. 

If you're like me with hooded lids you can spend lots of time making your lids look fab, only to open your eyes completely and have all that wonderful makeup disappear. I love Arabic style make up because I don't have that problem when I wear it. I love how versatile it can be, with just a color change, or switching between hard and soft lines. In these two looks I used black with a hard line and the blue with a softer line. The blue is my favorite of the two. 

Here's to hooded eye makeup success!

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Wedding Party Princess

One of the benefits of being a henna artist are all the party invitations. At least once a month I go to a wedding or wedding party which means lots of dress up.

Tonight's look is light and almost neutral in the eye department. It's spring so I wanted it keep it light while adding an element of sparkle. 

For the eyes I used a medium brown on the lid, a slightly darker brown from the outer edge into the crease, and dabbed gold across the lid. Winged liquid liner in "perversion" by Urban Decay, and waterline lined in "zero" also by Urban Decay. As an after thought I put a little of that gold under my lash line as well. Lip is a golden brown color from a lip palette. 

The scarf is a pretty pink pashmina from Nepal and the necklace used as a headpiece is a piece of costume jewelry from a local boutique. 

More party looks to come. Thank you for stopping by and joining me for two post Tuesday. 

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My love for Ruby Woo

It wasn't until a year ago that I got into make up in a serious way. I liked the stuff but wasn't really sure what to do with half of it. In addition I bought everything frosty or shimmer and didn't know what looked good on me.

YouTube is a great resource for tutorials and product info so I started my research there. It's was on YouTube that I discovered my darling Ruby Woo. 

One shade of lipstick I saw on many skin tones that looked fantastic every time was Ruby Woo. Ruby Woo doesn't pull out my olive and blue undertones, making me look sick. It adds a bit of warmth to my face without being too loud or over the top. 

Truth be told I love Ruby Woo more than I like Riri Woo. Some complain about the texture of retro matte lipsticks but I like it. Having fuller lips I often shy away from bold colors but I discovered it was the shiny texture that I didn't like. A lip pencil was recommended to help with feathering but I decided to forego it, and haven't had any issues with feathering. I'm also careful to moisturize my lips before using retro mattes, otherwise I get this chapped lip caked look.  

I'm really loving MAC's retro mattes. What are your favorite shades?

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In my spare time…

In my spare time I like to play photographer. Flowers are my focus but occasionally I step outside of the box and shoot something with more movement. 

No, that sweet cannon isn't mine but I can dream. On Friday June 7th my city hosted one of many fabulous fireworks displays. Unfortunately it was a very short show possibly due to technical issues but I enjoyed it while it lasted. Here are a few shots I took with my phone.